| LOWELL, PERCIVAL (1855 - 1916), American astronomer, was born at Boston, Mass.. March 13. 1855 He Graduated from Harvard in 1876 and then engaged in business. He began to specialize in astronomy in 1894 and established the Lowell Observatory at Flagstaff, Ariz., for the purpose of exhaustive planetary research. He was particularly interested in observing Mars and wrote books such as Mars us the Abode of Life (1908), urging that the Martian canals represented vegetation along artificial waterways. Later the canals were photographed. Lowell became the leading authority on Mars, and maintained that all evidence pointed to the existence of life on Mars. He assiduously observed Mercury and Venus, but his greatest contribution was the announcement of a probable trans-Neptunian planet. Lowell and W. H. Pickering, working independently, predicted the position of this planet, which in 1930 was announced as Pluto. He died at Flagstaff, Ariz., Nov. 12, l916. |